6 July 2009


Are GALA Members Satisfied with Their Translation Software Vendor?

Common Sense Advisory is surveying buyers and users of translation, localization, and internationalization software about their experiences with the products and the support they’ve received. Let your voice be heard. Take the survey!

Whenever we plan to buy something, we often look to Consumer Reports, J.D. Power, Underwriters Laboratories, Good Housekeeping, or their national equivalents to get a sense of quality, performance, and customer satisfaction from previous buyers. None of these companies have asked purchasers of translation, localization, and internationalization software how satisfied they were with what they bought, so Common Sense Advisory is stepping into the breach to ask. Voice your opinion and take our survey on customer satisfaction with language software.

Over the last few months, globalization software vendors have released a wave of new products and updates, many in just the last few weeks. Some of these new versions debuted quietly, sliding in to replace earlier versions without anyone noticing. Others called attention to themselves, heating up the message boards as translators shared their concerns about changes in license policy, interfaces, and pricing. Still others escaped notice altogether, testament to their esoteric or tiny communities of users.

It’s time for you to tell us what you think about the language software that you use in your company, at your agency, or in your freelance practice. Take our customer satisfaction survey, in which we ask about your strategic translation and localization vendor, the products you use, and whether you’re satisfied with the product itself and the service and support you’ve received. We’ll post a summary of results in an upcoming Global Watchtower entry and here in the GALA blog.

18 May 2007


Why is WYSIWYG important for software localization?

If you are new to software localization and visit the web sites of software tool vendors, they will tell you that What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) is an extremely important feature. We all know it is important for desktop publishing. WYSIWYG editing eliminates the need to print a flyer again and again to see how changes look. But why is WYSIWYG important to software localization? [Read More on The Localization Tool...]

3 April 2007


The Internationalization Tag Set 1.0 – A W3C Recommendation

The Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) version 1.0 has just been published as a W3C Recommendation. You can read the W3C press release.

ITS is a set of attributes and elements designed to help in the internationalization and localization of XML material. It can be used externally to the documents (a bit like the “DTD Settings” file in Trados), and it can be integrated within the XML documents themselves.

The ITS 1.0 Specification can be found here: www.w3.org/TR/its

You can find extensive examples, descriptions and links to implementations of ITS on the ITS Working Group page: www.w3.org/International/its.

The next step for the Working Group is the publishing of the “Best Practices for XML Internationalization” which is currently a Working Draft.

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